Stories for January 22nd 2018

Brazil will head to the polls on October 7 in what is set to be the most polarizing presidential race in living memory. While the final ballot is beginning to take shape, there is still a question mark over the candidacy of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party), who may be ineligible to run after his impending appeals court decision on charges of corruption. The imbroglio surrounding Lula guarantees that however the 2018 election turns out, both sides will feel they have reason to call foul play.

Security officials are dispersing with pellets and tear gas opposition concentration in front of the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, after the opposition convened a peaceful demonstration in protest against the government. So far at least 3 people have been injured by pellets in the confrontation. The protesters were refuging at the University and erected barricades in the street, facing with stones and molotovs the officials while they shoot and throw tear gas bombs inside the university headquarters, according to ReporteYA

The gap between the super rich and the rest of the world widened last year as wealth continued to be owned by a small minority, Oxfam has claimed. Some 82% of money generated last year went to the richest 1% of the global population while the poorest half saw no increase at all, the charity said.

An agreement has been signed by the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) with Premier Oil to secure the use of their Temporary Dock Facility until March 31, 2018. This pilot project is intended to test the market for additional berthing capacity within Stanley Harbor and to facilitate maintenance works on FIPASS.

Brazilian authorities have reported the seizure of a huge contraband of cigarettes from Paraguay, and some of the brands in the boxes belong to a well known tobacco company in Asunción, which belongs to president Horacio Cartes.

A team of Antarctic scientists hopes that an experiment to capture the sound of a single krill will help determine how many individuals of this key Antarctic species are swimming in the Southern Ocean. Researchers from the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) are using echo sounder technology to record the sound of krill specimens of different sizes over a range of frequencies.

Suspending the export of Brazilian fish to the European Union was a hard decision and still not well understood, the interim fisheries minister Eumar Novacki said at a meeting with businessmen from the sector, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA).

The squid fishing season in the South Atlantic, operating with Argentine licenses, has started with good prospects and a moderate optimism of the sector. During the first week jiggers reported daily average catches that oscillated between 28 and 35 tons, according to Pescare, an Argentine fish industry publication. .

More than one million people turned out Sunday for Pope Francis’ final Mass in Peru, giving him a warm and heartfelt farewell that contrasted sharply with the outcry he caused in neighboring Chile by accusing sex abuse victims of slandering a bishop.